Impact of the Women and Ploughing Program on Income and Land Productivity of female headed households:A case study in Five (5) Tabias of Ganta-Afeshum District, in Eastern Tigray Ethiopia

The study examined the impact of the Women and Ploughing Program on income and land Productivity of female headed households. Data for the study was obtained from 235(100 treated and 135 none treated groups) female headed households from five (5) tabis of Gantafeshum werdeda of Eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. In this research analytical model selected for this study was binary logit model, which significantly identifies the influences of participating in Women & ploughing program. The propensity score matching approach aims to build matched pairs of comparable participants and non-participants that show a similarity in terms of their observable characteristics. Thus, to support the result obtained from regression analysis the impact of women and ploughing program on income and land productivity FHs are examined using econometric PSM method. Results of the econometric model indicated the relative influence of different variables on participation in women and ploughing program of the total fifteen (15) explanatory variables included in the model eight of the variables (8) were found to show significant relationship with participation in women and ploughing program. Accordingly, these include family size, TLU, distance to the nearest market, access to oxen and farming skills, supply of Oxen & farm tools, training on Ploughing and agronomic practice, house ownership, female headed household numbers of years being as head, and access to extension service found to be positively significant relationship with participation in women and ploughing program. Propensity score matching (PSM) results show that participation in women and ploughing program contributes positively to female headed farmers’ annual income earning on average by Birr 2728.70, 2,505.22, 2,609.52 and, 2,363.40 for NNM, RM, KM and SM respectively than that of non participants in the program and explains analyze the income difference between women and ploughing program participants and non participants. It is possible to conclude income and productivity differential among female headed households can be explained as a result of participation and non participation in women and ploughing program. Participation in women and ploughing program puts female headed households at the heart of decision making on farming time, weeding, crop harvesting, and crop seed selection and like. Besides, participants in the program can grasp the entire crop left over which give an opportunity to boost their TLU holding. Regional and local government can benefit female headed households who own land through women and ploughing program as one package of extension approach. Therefore Government and partner NGOs should work closely on this issue to scale it up the experiences and field good practices gained in ADCS food security project and of the total cultivated land in the region 1, 299,598 ha, of which 183,362 ha (14%) is owned by female headed households. This gives apple ground to devise a program to make productive the land in the hands of female headed households at regional level through Women & ploughing program. Key Words: Female headed households, land productivity, supply of farm tools and oxen